EPISCOPALISM. — This is the name given to that Protestant ecclesiastical system in which the power to consecrate new ministers of the Church and to perpetuate the sect is held to reside solely in the bishops, who must in turn necessarily be consecrated with special ceremonies. It is immaterial whether there exists above the bishop a superior jurisdictional authority (as in England, the king or queen); nor is it sufficient that the title of “bishop” has been retained (as among the Episcopalian Methodists), if the bishop has not received the special consecration. Neither the king nor such a bishop can, according to the episcopal system, ordain new ministers.
The two most important Churches or sects under the episcopal system are the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States; to these the Anglo-Episcopalians have added the Catholic bishops, the Lutherans of Sweden, and also the Eastern schismatics.
The Anglicans living in Italy depend upon the Anglican bishop of Gibraltar, and the Episcopalians upon the “presiding” bishop of the United States, who governs them through an auxiliary bishop ordinarily resident in Geneva.
On the limited jurisdiction of the archbishop of Canterbury, V. CANTERBURY; on Conferences (v.); on the Anglican ecclesiastical convocations, suppressed in 1717 and restored in 1854, V. ANGLICANISM; BANGOR, CONTROVERSY of; CONVOCATIONS; on the various modifications made to the episcopal system by the Episcopal Church of the United States V. EPISCOPAL, PROTESTANT CHURCH; on Anglican ordinations V. ANGLICAN ORDINATIONS.